Any tips on dealing with in-laws????

My inlaws have treated me horrifically since me and husband got married, even through my pregnancy, since my daughter has been born and over christmas and new year. My husband is devastated and i cannot understand how his parents can be so awful towards him and his daughter.

please tell me i'm not the only one who is going through this??? you can pm if you like

Very sad

Hi, I feel that its very sad when grandparents treat their inlaws badly. Always remember you can only be treated as bad as you allow people to treat you (I hope that makes sense). If they are treating you badly in their home, either your husband or yourself should say I don't like being treated like this and make your excuses and leave. If it happens in your own home, you can always ask them to leave or go for a walk with your daughter. Show them that their behavour isn't going to be accepted. They'll either change their ways or will remain the same, but you'll feel happier that you are in control and are not letting anyone treat you badly. I do hope that they manage to turn things around. I get on exceptionally well with my inlaws and wish you all the best x

Although you haven't described what it is that they have done, I would suggest that you try to keep calm if you have to speak with them (easier said than done, I know). They would probably relish provoking you into an row in order to "prove" that it is you and not them. Otherwise let them stew for a while. There is no reason why you should set yourself up for further unpleasantness.

I don't doubt that your husband is both baffled and distressed by their behaviour, as are you. Have they ever behaved towards anyone else like this? It may be part of a pattern.

When someone is being thoroughly unpleasant to you and you have no idea why, it is very tempting to think that it is down to you. It is not - they are responsible for their own behaviour. I think that trying to appease such nastiness probably isn't going to work - the only thing you can do is to decide how you are going to respond. If that means not having contact with them for a while then that may be necessary.

I have no idea what they hope to gain from this. It could be that they have always behaved in this way to others and your husband simply wasn't aware of it, nor never thought that they would do this to him...

my husband moved from Liverpool to North Wales (70 miles) in september 2010 to live with me...but we would always travel up for birthdays and gathering etc, but then during the summer we found out that theyd been out for a celebration but had never mentioned it to us - let alone invited us. I was a bit peeved but my husband was gutted but i bit my tongue for month. But then at the end of november he fell out with his aunt (he ended up in tears as it turns out everyone has been talking about us behind our backs and being false with us), and i flipped out at them upsetting my husband so (wrong i know) i ended up having a huge row with his mam for letting everyone treat her son this way, and told her how she had upset us both my being a cow throughout the year and that if she wanted us to be nice to her and play a part in our daughters life she needed to buck up her ideas and start being nice to us. she then called around everyone telling them i called her an unfit mother (i never said such thing, i dont even think that of her, and i wasnt stupid enough to give her more ammo against me). But everyone was convinced she was telling the truth...even had his nan calling me to tell me off, so i told her as she wasnt on the phone with her she had no right to accuse me of calling her daughter an unfit mother. somehow she managed to conjure up some witnesses to back her up...luckily my husband believed me and a couple of weeks later she admitted she made it up (we wont apologise though) but his nan nor his aunt have been in touch since, not even to wish him a happy birthday, happy christmas or a happy new year. my husband has wrote to them asking them to leave him alone and he wishes to have no contact with them...and what shocked me the most was that they accepted this - didnt even fight to try to keep him and his daughter in their lives!

this has upset me, and even though it would be so much easier for me not to have them in my life - i dont want my husband not to have his family. so last week i suggested he contacted his parents inviting them to ours to see our baby (now 12 weeks old, they havent seen her since she was 4 weeks old). we thought they would jump at the chance - oh how wrong we were. his mam sent him an email saying she needed to think if she wanted to see him and our daughter again - WHAT KIND OF MOTHER NEEDS TO THINK IF SHE WANTS TO SEE THE SON SHE CAUSED SO MUCH HURT TO.

i suggested he called her after receiving that email, and they spoke for almost an hour, she said that she would like to come to ours to see our daughter.

I am dreading this...i cant forgive her for treating my husband so badly - i am soooooo protective of him, and i really dont want the woman in my home - but i know that foor my husbands sake i just have to bite the bullet...but i am petrified that all of this will come back and bite me on the bum.

my husband says he wont give his mam an inch, and trust me neither will i...how do i approach her when she does come knocking on my door in a few weeks time??

You don't have to deal with them at all. If they are treating you badly infront of your children then that behaviour could rub off on them. You have bent over backwards, now its time to shut the door on them.

Oh dear. No wonder you are in no hurry to see them again. It occurs to me that perhaps they thought that he would always be nearby (was he always doing things for them?) and were less than delighted when he decided to move away from them and closer to you. That said, 70 miles is not a vast distance - it could be 700 or even 7,000. Other people's families can be very strange at times (even one's own family can be strange). You were not going to be happy to discover that his wider family were saying one thing to your face and another behind your back - that on its own was enough to cause trouble. However, his mother really should have known better than to make things up - I hope she has put this right with the wider family. It could be, of course, that the other family members have decided that they don't want to get any more involved in this situation than they already are and are letting things cool off a bit first.

It has also occurred to me that there is a pattern of falling out and drama and then fence-mending? Some families seem to thrive on this kind of behaviour whilst others would do anything to avoid it.

If and when she does come to your house, try to remain cool, calm and collected. Clearly she needs to put a few things right with your husband as well as yourself. Or she may decide to pretend that none of this ever happened in the first place. I think you will have to play it by ear and see how the meeting develops.

My husband is a year younger than me nearly and was 22 when he moved to live with me and then 23 when we got married and had our daughter. In my eyes they cant accept that he is a grown man now, and they still try to dictate his every move. If his mam was awkward eg and expected us to change our plans to suit her she would make my father in law call my husband to give him a row and make him do what she wants. this annoyed me that they continued to treat him like a child.

i dont know if she has told the rest of the family that she made up the lie about me calling her an unfit mother, and i dont particularly care - she has confessed to my husband and thats the main thing.

My mother had contacted my mother in law after the main fall out, just to let her know that we were upset and suggested they give us a couple of weeks to calm down and come round (my mother is a pacifist, i would have rathered my mam played hell with her), and replied to my mother with a text saying "F**k off". My husband has warned her that if she does wish to visit us then she has to apologise to my mam for being so rude. (she was also very rude to my mam when she came to visit me at the hospital after id given birth, she was jealous that my mam had been with me during labour and delivery, and was upset that she wasnt asked to be a part of the birth - why would you want your mother in law with you during labour i'll never know)

I rather suspect that your MIL would be only too pleased to know how angry she has made you. I understand that trying to keep your cool in the face of such provocation is very hard but, please don't let it get to you. Her antics say far more about her than they do about you.

It could be that she is used to throwing her weight about and getting her own way, either directly or indirectly (I noted your comments about using your FIL as a means to stir things up). Of course, she must apologise to your mother for her rudeness at the hospital and for her later behaviour but I am wondering just whether it would be a meaningful apology or something she is saying because she thinks it will help her to get what she wants. Perhaps your mother is not used to dealing with people who think sending four-letter words by text is a mature way to behave, and the response she got to her well-intentioned attempts to calm the situation came as an unpleasant surprise to both of you.

As you say, the man in your life is an adult, a husband and a father and is entitled to be treated like one. It has occurred to me that perhaps they thought he was too young to take on such a commitment but her behaviour and that of the wider family is hardly constructive and is certainly not going to lead to a harmonious relationship between all of you. I hope that she has thought very carefully about the next steps she is going to take, because I don't think that she can afford to get it so badly wrong again.

I'd suggest treating it as a work meeting with someone who you know is a difficult person to get on with - keep calm and professional. Don't get angry and try not to get yourself worked up too much before hand otherwise it will be easy to get ****** off at the slightest thing.

Well I would say from experience is to keep your distance if you have tricky inlaws. Ive lost my current partner through his mum interfering causing arguments, partner couldnt take it anymore and left.

Knowing what i do now, i would keep my distance, dont be too friendly but be pleasant well mannered. Some MIL seem to have a problem with letting their son move on with their life with a partner and seem to thrive on causing friction. I wish i had kept my distance and not included her so much in my life. I might not have lost my partner if I had.

Focus on whats best for you, hubby and the kids - ignore any silliness from inlaws. Otherwise they could make you go insane with their antics. If thats how they live as a family let them get on with it, just dont let it in your family home.

progress

well girls...we have some progress - finally!

my husband spoke to his mother this evening to arrange when they could come to visit. I've said to him that i dont want them here on a weekend when my 5 year old son (from a previous relationship) is here, because i dont want him to witness anything should they kick-off. Well she said she wouldnt kick off, and wants to apologise to me!!!! and would rather do it face to face that over the phone!!!!

my husband is happy with this, and i am glad that she is willing to apologise - cuz at the way that i see it - she has upset her son's wife, her grandaughters mother! but i also want her to apologise to my mam - which i dont think is unreasonable!

the most important thing for me is that my husband is happy, and it would be unfair of me to make my husband raise his family without being able to share it with his parents.

i've said i will accept her apology - and that i will also offer an apology in return, not for telling her what she needed to hear - but for the fact that i let it build up and bottled it up for so long that when i finally stuck up for myself - she copped all the info at once.

we'll see how it goes when my husband has decided he is ready to see them again - at the moment he wants to continue with talking over the phone to build up his trust in his parents.